The News Tribune · Jun 14, 2017
Tradition or a middle reliever? Long live Safeco Field!
In what amounted to a statement I translated as “20 Years, Who Cares?” the Mariners announced Tuesday that the ballpark we know as Safeco Field won’t be known as Safeco Field beyond next season.
The team already has initiated “preliminary talks” for a new naming rights deal likely to be struck with a corporate partner based in the Seattle area. Early suggestions are flooding the blogosphere, and I’m not encouraged.
Starbucks Grounds? (It’s from the scrap heap and, besides, associating Starbucks with a Seattle sports franchise would be – borrowing here from Humphrey Bogart’s “Casablanca” retort to Ingrid Bergman about Paris – bad salesmanship.)